Four Women Are Sentenced In Attack on Man in Village

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

Published: June 15, 2007

A judge sentenced four young women to prison yesterday -- one for 11 years -- for beating and stabbing an independent filmmaker in Greenwich Village last year who they claimed had taunted them because they were lesbians.

The judge told the women, all from Newark, that they should have heeded the nursery rhyme about ''sticks and stones'' and walked away from the confrontation.

The judge, Justice Edward J. McLaughlin of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, showed little sympathy for the women's contention that taunts from the filmmaker, Dwayne Buckle, had left them no choice but to defend themselves.

Justice McLaughlin scoffed at the assertion made by the woman described as the group's ringleader, Patreese Johnson, that she carried a knife because she was just 4-foot-11 and 95 pounds, worked nights and lived in a dangerous neighborhood.

The judge recited the rhyme, ''Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me,'' and said that Mr. Buckle may have used ''insulting words, stupid words,'' ''but that doesn't justify hurting a human being.''

He sentenced Ms. Johnson, who is 19, to 11 years in prison, and suggested that her ''meek, weak'' demeanor on the witness stand had been an act.

While it might be ''difficult to imagine somebody 4-foot-10 or 4-foot-11 or 4-foot-11 1/2,'' stabbing a large man, Justice McLaughlin said, ''You swung that thing two to three or four times.''

As they were sentenced, the young women wept and wailed, one of them crying, ''I'm a good girl!''

Justice McLaughlin's sentencing speech covered territory from how New York welcomes tourists to how small actions, like a kick, can have large consequences. He talked about what he said was a now-defunct law about ''homicide by shod foot,'' and about how merely stubbing a toe is enough to break it.

''A judge is not a potted plant,'' Justice McLaughlin said, adding that he had his own strong views about the evidence at the trial and was entitled to judge the women as he thought was ''appropriate.''

He gave the shortest sentence, three and a half years, to Terrain Dandridge, 20, because, he said, ''of all the people, she took some responsibility,'' although, he added, ''It wasn't a full sacramental confession.''

He sentenced Venice Brown, 19, to five years, describing her as someone who escalated the confrontation through verbal insults.

He sentenced Renata Hill, 25, to eight years, saying that she pursued Mr. Buckle and punched him and that she should have known better because she was older than the other women.

As Ms. Hill cried, her lawyer, Susan Tipograph, said angrily, ''I'm sorry that my client is not pleased with the court's sentencing.''

The judge replied: ''Are you helping? Have a seat.''

During the trial, Mr. Buckle, 29, testified that he was sitting on a fire hydrant on Sixth Avenue at West Third Street about 2 a.m. on Aug. 18, promoting DVDs of his low-budget independent film when the women walked by.

He testified that he said ''Hi'' to one of the women -- he couldn't remember which one -- because she was ''slightly pretty,'' and that the group responded by calling his sneakers cheap and saying he would never make it as a filmmaker. He admitted that he called one woman an elephant and told another that she looked like a man, but said that he never attacked any of them physically.

The women said he began the confrontation by calling out, ''Let me get some of that!'' and then boasting that he could have sex with them and make them straight.

Mr. Buckle, whose film credits are mostly for sound engineering, did not attend yesterday's hearing, and none of the women spoke for themselves, although their lawyers asked for leniency.

They said the women had struggled with difficult childhoods and should not be seen as hardened criminals.

The lawyer for Ms. Brown said without elaborating that she had ''had a child'' and also ''lost a child'' at an early age. Ms. Johnson's lawyer said that she had been raised by an aunt after her mother died, and was part of a network of relatives living within one block of one another.